You are of course correct. GDP was always a terrible measure of the prosperity of a nation. Just having a robust economy doesn’t mean the quality of life of the everyday citizen is any better.

We are also living in an age where the young are more globally minded and more loyal to the planet or their international online gaming squad than the idea of a striped piece of cloth and a few thousand square miles of rock and dirt. They realise we are all in this together and to increase the profits of one nation normally means squeezing the finances of another. Economic Imperialism is neither sustainable nor ethical.

I’d thoroughly recommend reading Connectography by Paragraph Khanna and Postcapitalism by Paul Mason.